title: Clinical significance of circulating galectins as colorectal cancer markers.
abstract: The utility of CEA and CA19-9 as colorectal carcinoma (CRC) markers is limited and development of additional reliable markers is under investigation. We previously showed that galectin-1 is overexpressed in CRC tissues. If such a protein leaks into the peripheral circulation, it might constitute a tumor marker candidate. Here, we test the hypothesis that the levels of circulating galectins could reflect the presence of CRC and/or its progression state. We constructed sandwich ELISAs for galectin-1/-2/-3/-4/-7 and determined their plasma concentrations in 105 CRC patients and 100 healthy volunteers (control). Matched pair samples of 56 patients pre- and post-surgery were also subjected to ELISA analysis. Circulating levels of galectin-1/-3/-4 in CRC patients were significantly higher compared to those in controls. Galectin-1 and galectin-4 levels significantly decreased after surgery (P<0.01), and the level of galectin-4 in most patients fell below the cut-off value. The levels of circulating galectin-4 significantly increased as the tumor stage progressed (P<0.001), whereas those for galectin-1 were relatively high from an early stage. Combined use of galectin-4 with CEA and/or CA19-9 markedly increased the proportion of CRC patients who were positive for tumor markers (from 33.3 to 59.0% for CEA and from 17.1 to 51.4% for CA19-9). Our data show that galectin-4 may be a tumor marker for use in patient follow-up, while galectin-1 could be used for tumor screening. In particular, galectin-4 can be useful as a complementary marker when combined with CEA/CA19-9 to improve CRC follow-up.
authors.affiliation: Division of Disease Proteomics, Institute for Protein Research, Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan.
authors.forename: Makoto
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Ichiro
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Takemasa
authors.forename: Naoki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kaneko
authors.forename: Yuhki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yokoyama
authors.forename: Ei-Ichi
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Matsuo
authors.forename: Susumu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Iwasa
authors.forename: Masaki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mori
authors.forename: Nariaki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Matsuura
authors.forename: Morito
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Monden
authors.forename: Osamu
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Nishimura
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000097:blood*; D018395:CA-19-9 Antigen / Q000097:blood; D002272:Carcinoembryonic Antigen / Q000097:blood; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D037161:Galectins / Q000097:blood*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D012016:Reference Values; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D018395:CA-19-9 Antigen; D002272:Carcinoembryonic Antigen; D037161:Galectins